I've Got Your Back
by katydidit
Summary: She doesn't look at him when he touches her. He's not entirely sure what to make of that.


She always comes the hardest when she's not looking at him, and he doesn't really know how to feel about that.

There is very little that he would not do in order to be able to watch her face when she comes like that, see what secrets she lets slip out from behind soft eyelids and gasping mouth. He tells himself that it doesn't actually have anything to do with him or the way he looks. He's never had any trouble attracting a reasonable amount of attention, after all, and if she wasn't at least a little attracted to him, he knows she wouldn't have stuck around this long.

Maybe it's a trust thing. He could see that. People are always that much more vulnerable when they're on the verge of climax. Her life hasn't been easy. There hasn't exactly been an abundance of moments where she's been rewarded for making herself vulnerable to someone. So it's self-preservation. And maybe it's because they're so used to working as a team. She knows he's got her back, always.

So moments like these, when they're stretched out together among his sheets, and her smooth pale back is pressed up against his own much darker chest, there's something so familiar about them. He has one arm slipped beneath her, around her waist like one of her safety harnesses. His fingers splay out across her belly. He can feel the twitches and ripples in her abs when his other hand slips between her legs and draws lazy circles against her.

She likes to get things like this done quickly and precisely. Maybe it's a side effect of being a cat burglar. In the beginning of things, she was all grasping fingers and desperate commands until she reached her goal, at which point she would quickly lose interest in the whole thing and jump up to get a bowl of cereal.

He's always preferred to take his time. He's no less precise, mind you—he doesn't waste a single movement when he's driving her to the edge of climax—but he's not nearly as frenetic. He likes to hold her like this, feel her against every part of him. He likes to bury his nose in her hair and inhale the smell of her shampoo (thieves shouldn't have distinctive smells like this, he knows, but that only serves to drive him crazier), and to press his lips against her shoulder. She's not much into biting, or really any kind of physical pain when they're being intimate, but sometimes he scrapes his teeth lightly along her skin and she has to bite down on the heel of her hand to hold back her groan.

She's getting more patient when it comes to this, and he's getting less. In the beginning, it didn't take long until she was twitchy and antsy in the bad way, even when he was holding her the way she liked to be held. He always wanted to draw it out as long as he could. She would writhe against him and grip at the fingers of his free hand on her belly, and he would grin against the back of her neck and slow down even more. Sometimes he'd hear her huff, maybe grit out a swear word or two or (somewhat more rare) a whining plea to "do it already". He'd oblige, of course. He knew that no one could hold her any longer than she allowed them to.

He knows how much it means when she pleads with him rather than breaking his finger and doing it herself.

But now she's not as desperate to get things over with so quickly. She seems almost content to lie there with him when he's touching her. She still grips his fingers, of course, and sometimes she slides her hand down to cover his and force his fingers to move faster. But he's become the impatient one. He knows what she feels like when she comes. Her body goes taut in his arms, and then relaxes against him even as her hips grind against his hand. She is silent while she chases her climax. He likes to suck lightly on the side her neck, never biting, never leaving a mark, just feeling the blood rush through her and the way her throat strains for breath.

When she shoves his hand away and collapses harder against him, there's always a moment or two when she leaves her top leg slung up over his. She's open and vulnerable then, breathing hard and shuddering when he moves his hand between her legs again, this time to cover her. She is more than capable of protecting herself, he knows, especially against the likes of him, but those moments when she lets him hold her close, protect her with his hands and his body...he lives for those now.

When her breathing starts to steady once again—and it never takes long—he likes to run his fingertips along the outside of her thigh before easing her legs back together. Sometimes she squirms just enough to make him wonder if maybe she's ticklish. Out of concern for his own safety, he would never try to figure that out for sure.

Afterwards, when she's not quite comfortable being held so tightly anymore but she's not quite ready to jump up and bound into the kitchen, she rolls onto her back and stretches. It's always a full-body stretch, complete with hands interlocked around the headboard and a sigh that makes him think of a cat purring. Then she looks at him with half-lidded eyes and a bright unabashed grin. It's around this time when he always feels the need to say something, but he's never quite sure what to say. The words become a jumble in his mind. _You'rebeautifulthankyoudoyoutrustmedon'tgo. _So instead he always just reaches over to touch her cheek.

Her smile seems to widen a bit, and her eyes don't stray from his—for at least a few moments. When she does finally get out of the bed and disappear into the kitchen, he tries not to listen for the sounds of cereal hitting tile. It's never long before she comes back, leaning casually against the doorway and chewing huge mouthfuls as though she's not completely naked, as though just moments ago they weren't enjoying each other's bodies. She grins at him again, and it's not as wide or unguarded as the one before, but it's every bit as precious to him.

And he realizes that it doesn't much matter to him where she's looking when she comes, if she'll look at him like that the rest of the time.


End file.
